The second passage occurs in Man. (f. 18 a), in the course of a version of the Ṣaṣṣa legend:
The ḥakīm arranged it thus and it was chess, and he made it in the likeness of a battle between two armies. He made the nafs to resemble the king, the firzān to resemble the vizier, and the two rukhs the commanders of the right and left wings. Next to these he placed the two faras, and then the two fīls. These are reckoned as the more important members of the army. The baidaqs resemble the infantry. He then made each piece’s move (ḥaraka) proportionate to its strength in the army, and fixed that the victory is gained when the shāh is slain, his army still being in existence—this is mate—or when his army is captured.
In the third passage from BM (f. 6 b) a different interpretation is attempted:
The inventor of chess made the board to represent a field of battle upon which two armies are drawn up for the contest, and the six figures, shāh, firzān, fīl, faras, rukh and baidaq represent the six classes upon which war turns and which are essential to it. Of these the first is the king who rules, the second the vizier who leads, the third the commander of the army who arranges, the fourth the cavalry, the fifth the fortresses (ḥuṣūn), and the sixth the infantry. He represented the king by the shāh, the vizier by the firzān, the commander of the army by the rukh, the cavalry by the faras, the fortresses by the fīls, and the infantry by the baidaqs. This is the classification of the chessmen (ālāt ash-shaṭranj).
The following was his intention in the arrangement. He put the shāh in the centre because the king ought to be in the heart of his army. He put the firzān next him because the vizier ought to be in the king’s vicinity. He put the fīl next the firzān because the strongest places in the battle array ought to be where king and vizier are. He put the faras between fīl and rukh because cavalry ought to be the defence of the fortresses. He put the rukh next the faras because the commander ought to be in command of the right and left wings. He put the baidaqs in a line in front of these because the infantry is placed in the van in battle. This was his intention in the arrangement of the chessmen.
His intention in the arrangement of the pieces in the game was to liken the game to a struggle and attack. He gave the baidaq a move of one square in a straight line, because it is not right for the foot-soldier to quit his position in battle, nor to advance except step by step. He made it take obliquely because the injury he inflicts on his enemy in the battle happens unexpectedly. He appointed that he should become a firzān when he reached the end of the board, because a man who advances and penetrates to the enemy’s camp, and preserves himself from capture or overthrow, deserves the viziership in war. He gave the faras a far-reaching move, because the horseman, being mounted, can transport himself to a distance, and can fall back to his camp when he is threatened. He made his move an oblique one in moving forwards and backwards and in capturing, because the horseman of necessity attacks his enemy, lance in hand, and takes him by swift and sudden movements. He gave the rukh the move in the four cardinal directions as far as the end of the lines confronting him, which is the most extended move of the pieces, because in war it is the commanders of the right and left wings who harass and burden to their utmost the enemy’s weak points which are opposite to them. He made the shāh’s move a single square in every direction, because the King is not one who should move swiftly. He is free to move at choice either forwards or backwards. The rule for the firzān is the same, except that his liberty of move is less than the shāh’s. When he takes, he takes according to his ward.6
The text omits the description of the move of the fīl, but I have given it entire as in the MS. because it shows very clearly the extent to which the original parallelism that was intended between chess and war was still recognized by Arabic writers as late as 1250 A.D., notwithstanding the fact that the older Indian explanation had been forgotten. The explanation of the Rook as a commander shows that the original meaning of the name of the chess-piece was not generally known, while the new interpretation of the fīls in the BM extract suggests that the use of the elephant in war was also passing from memory. The new interpretation is far-fetched, and yet after all only a foreshadowing of the European substitution of the Castle (at first borne on an elephant’s back) for another piece, the meaning of whose name has been entirely forgotten, the Rook.
I have already cited passages to show that the use of pieces (ṣūra) which were actual images of the men and animals from which the chessmen took their names was opposed on religious grounds. The legal objection to so elaborate a type of piece was undoubtedly assisted by the economic difficulty that few players would be able to afford such costly implements of play. The invention of a simpler and cheaper type of chessmen was a direct result of the great popularity of chess, and at an early date a definite conventional type of man came into use. The oldest examples are the chessmen from Bambra-ka-thūl in the British Museum, but there are other early Muslim chessmen, mostly from Egypt and probably none as old as 1000 A.D., in the Museum in the case of chessmen in the Mediaeval Room. They may be easily identified, from their resemblance either to the modern Muslim chessmen or to the earlier European conventional pieces. We may safely conclude that the original Muslim type comprised (a) three pieces of different sizes, but all more or less cylindrical in shape, of which the tallest represented the shāh, the intermediate one the firzān, and the smallest (an exact replica of the firzān) the baidaq; (b) two pieces with long and narrow necks, one with a slightly cleft head for the fīl, the other for the faras; and (c) another piece, rather more massive than the fīl or faras, with a well-marked top which in early times was flattened on two sides and contained a deep cleft in the centre, which represented the rukh.
The opposing sides were distinguished by the different colours of the two sets of chessmen. In the MSS. these are called red and black (probably because inks of these colours were most easily procurable), and only rarely white and black. The modern sets which I have seen are white and black, white and red, red and green, and red and black.
The arrangement of the pieces at the opening of the game is generally shown in the MSS. as here diagrammed. In only one MS., the late Pers. Y, is the red King placed on e1. At first sight this appears to be out of harmony with the European arrangement. The latter is, however, purely conventional, and depends upon the convention governing the placing of the chequered board and the very modern custom of giving the first move exclusively to White. In earlier times the Black pieces were preferred:—H (f. 51b) says, ‘the Black men are for the chief, and the White for the inferior’; and the chess-player generally visualized the board from the Black point of view. The important fact in these MS. diagrams is the unanimity with which they support the European opposition of King to King and Queen to Queen, and oppose the antiquity of the modern Asiatic crosswise arrangement.
The moves of the pieces were as follows:—
The Shāh or Nafs, King (K),7 moved one square at a time into any of the eight or fewer squares surrounding that on which he happened to be standing, the square selected being unoccupied by one of his own pieces or a protected piece of his opponent’s, and being out of the range of attack of any hostile piece at the moment of moving. He captured in the same way that he moved. He could not move into check, and whenever he was checked he was obliged to remedy it as in the modern game. If he was unable to do so it was shāh māt (Per. shāh māt), māt, rarely shāh wa māt, checkmate, and the game was ended. When a player gave check it was usual for him to warn his opponent of the fact by saying shāh, coupling with the name of the King the name of any other piece that was simultaneously attacked, e.g. shāh war-rukh, shāh wa rukh (Per. shāh rukh), a check forking King and Rook; shāh wal-fīl, a check forking King and Fīl (L, f. 26 a); shāh wa firz (H, f. 37 a), or shāh wa firzān (AH, f. 55 b), a check forking King and Firzān; shāh wa faras (AH, f. 56 a), a check forking King and Faras; and even shāh wa baidaq ash-shāh (L, f. 63 a), a check forking King and King’s Pawn. Another technicality in AH (f. 92 b) is shāh mubaṭṭanān, an intimate check, used of a cheek by a Rook on an adjacent square (e.g. Re7 checking Ke8). From this use of the name of the piece is derived the verb shāha (imp. yashīhu; IV stem, ’ashāha; VII stem, inshāha),